Black Desert Online cracking down on private servers to community’s dismay

The folks at Kakao Games and Pearl Abyss have announced via an official forum post from GM Rhotaaz that they’re cracking down on Black Desert Online private servers, much to the displeasure of the community. In the post, GM Rhotaaz writes, “We consider the operation of private servers to be an infringement of our copyright and we will be taking measures to protect our interests and the interests of the Black Desert Online community.” In addition to actively working to shut down private servers (via legal action if necessary), the devs will be implementing a Client Authentication System, intended to ensure that players are using the only the official client to connect only to official servers, starting on November 7th.

The community response to this announcement has been less than enthused, to say the least. Replies to the official post are largely critical of the developers, with many suggesting — both with and without copious expletives — that players wouldn’t need to seek out private servers if the developers actually listened to the community’s concerns and addressed their complaints appropriately. While it’s not unusual for MMO developers to try to stamp out private servers, for obvious reasons, it seems to have struck a particularly raw nerve within the BDO community.